Jackson County Government Hit With Ransomware Attack

We rely so much on computers for our day-to-day business these days, and that leaves us vulnerable to bad actors who try to take advantage of that fact to get us to pay up. Jackson County government officials say they're currently fighting one of these attacks that have taken over their computer network, and the attackers are demanding an undisclosed amount of payment in Bitcoin, which is untraceable.

Officials say the attack likely came via an email 'phishing' attempt that an employee inadvertently opened that infected the network. The county IT department said even their backed up computer data has been affected. Officials also say they won't be paying any ransom, and they've hired an out-of-state IT firm that specializes in dealing with these kinds of attacks.

This isn't the first city or county government to deal with such an attack. The city of Baltimore was attacked in early May when attackers requested a ransom of $76,000. City officials denied that request and a published report said the city will end up losing an estimated $18.2 million in revenue.

This story originally appeared on the Victoria Advocate, and you can read it here.